


Wait

by kirasometimes



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Nicky dies first, or Mild Comfort?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26093281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirasometimes/pseuds/kirasometimes
Summary: There is no warning; Nicky is simply out of time.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 13
Kudos: 169





	Wait

In the end, it is a violent death and not the quiet release he and Joe had hoped for. Instead, Nicky has taken many bullets, the worst of them in his stomach and lungs. Strange, he thinks now, how the weapons haven’t changed much nor the men wielding them. He will die now fighting the same fight he died for the first time. The very first time, long ago. At least this time he hopes history will remember him on the right side. 

He falls to his knees which buckle immediately and he is on the floor instead. Joe is running to him. Nicky hopes he makes it. 

Before Andy passed, a thousand lifetimes before, she told them of the little signs she’d notice when her mortality began to take hold. An ache in her fingers, a stiff leg, the unfamiliar itch of blood trickling from a wound down her back. It was quick to claim her, but it still took, as all things do, time. 

Yet he feels as if he had had no time, no warning, no chance to prepare. 

“Nicolo, please,” he hears Joe begin to sob in Arabic as he is gathered into his arms. He can’t hold his head up and it sags against Joe’s shoulder. “Not like this. You can’t leave me now, not like this.”

Not like this. No, never like this. He marvels at Joe’s skin, already whole and unblemished beneath the slick and drying blood covering them both. The quiet that is suddenly around them says the battle is over. Joe has survived. 

Nicky is dying. Andy did not mention how very harsh it feels. There is a difference this time. He knows this is final. 

“Joe,” he murmurs. Chokes, really. Lifts his hand to touch Joe’s cheek. That is all that is left of his strength.

“You will be okay,” Joe promises. Lies, really. They both know this. 

“Joe. Yusuf,” he whispers. “Tell them I’m sorry-“

Joe shakes his head and Nicky knows he is not thinking of Nile and Booker. But Nicky will miss them. He wonders who will come next. He worries for this person, his little brother or sister he will never know. 

“I did not expect to feel so afraid,” he confesses suddenly and this causes Joe to cradle him to his chest. “I don’t want to go without you.”

“I will follow you soon,” Joe replies. “I must. We were reborn together. We must die together as well.”

“You are not,” Nicky shudders, a cold he cannot feel gripping him. “Please do not.”

“Who am I without you?”

“You are...”

Nicky tries to think. He never been as eloquent as Joe. He knows who Joe is. He is light and goodness and fire and passion and charcoal on parchment and large hands that hold him and smiles that move the earth and 

“You are you and you are mine,” Nicky says through the blood filling his mouth. 

Joe kisses him. It can’t be enjoyable it but Nicky is grateful none the less. The last thing he feels...

“I will... wait... for you.”

He does. He waits 25 five more years until it is Joe’s time. And then time is gone. It is nothing to them. It is only who they are and they are at peace together.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote Lemon Trees and Flowers in a sort of fever dream at 4am this morning. On my lunch break after no sleep, I wrote this. Will these two ever just let me live?


End file.
